
无数据
1.Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2.State Key Laboratory of Precision Space-Time Information Sensing Technology, Beijing 100084, China
3.Key Laboratory of Photonic Control Technology, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
4.Department of Chemistry, MOE Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Qiang Liu (qiangliu@tsinghua.edu.cn)
Xing Fu (fuxing@tsinghua.edu.cn)
Received:14 October 2025,
Revised:2026-02-15,
Accepted:02 March 2026,
Online First:03 April 2026,
Published:30 June 2026
Scan QR Code
Long, R. L. et al. Quasi-BIC metasurfaces enable rapid, localized singlet-oxygen generation. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 2078-2088 (2026).
Long, R. L. et al. Quasi-BIC metasurfaces enable rapid, localized singlet-oxygen generation. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 2078-2088 (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41377-026-02267-9.
Bound states in the continuum (BIC) provide a photonic route to concentrate and store electromagnetic energy with minimal radiative leakage. Here
we report Au–TiO
2
metasurfaces that couple q-BIC optical resonance to interfacial charge transfer
enabling hot-carrier–mediated generation of
1
O
2
within subwavelength optical paths. Photonic engineering acts through two cooperative effects: (ⅰ) increased optical absorption that boosts hot-carrier generation at the Au/TiO
2
interface; a
nd (ⅱ) ultralow noble-metal loading that suppresses electron–hole recombination at metal/semiconductor junctions
thereby prolonging carrier lifetimes. These effects jointly yield a synergistic enhancement of
1
O
2
production beyond either pathway alone. Under continuous-wave excitation
the metasurfaces reach a local molar-level concentration of
1
O
2
within seconds
corresponding to an approximately six-order-of-magnitude increase in local
1
O
2
concentration compared with conventional approaches. Tuning structural asymmetry and excitation wavelength enables wavelength- and position-selective cytotoxicity without additional molecular sensitizers. By decoupling strong absorption from nobel-metal usage while extending hot-carrier persistence in a single platform
BIC-engineered metasurfaces offer a general way to achieve efficient photon-to-chemical conversion at solid–liquid interfaces. This approach is of significant value to rapid-acting photodynamic therapy
selective oxidation
and flow microreactors where low dose and geometric precision are critical.
DeRosa, M.C. & Crutchley, R. J. Photosensitized singlet oxygen and its applications. Coord. Chem. Rev. 233–234 , 351–371 (2002)..
Schweitzer, C. & Schmidt, R. Physical mechanisms of generation and deactivation of singlet oxygen. Chem. Rev. 103 , 1685–1758 (2003)..
Ogilby, P. R. Singlet oxygen: there is indeed something new under the sun. Chem. Soc. Rev. 39 , 3181–3209 (2010)..
Blázquez-Castro, A. Direct 1 O 2 optical excitation: a tool for redox biology. Redox Biol. 13 , 39–59 (2017)..
Dougherty, T. J. et al. Photodynamic therapy. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 90 , 889–905 (1998)..
Agostinis, P. et al. Photodynamic therapy of cancer: an update. CA Cancer J. Clin. 61 , 250–281 (2011)..
Zhao, J. & Yang, X. D. Photocatalytic oxidation for indoor air purification: a literature review. Build. Environ. 38 , 645–654 (2003)..
Mamaghani, A. H., Haghighat, F. & Lee, C. S. Photocatalytic oxidation technology for indoor environment air purification: the state-of-the-art. Appl. Catal. B Environ. 203 , 247–269 (2017)..
Wang, Y. et al. Singlet oxygen: Properties, generation, detection, and environmental applications. J. Hazard. Mater. 461 , 132538 (2024)..
Kou, J. Y., Dou, D. & Yang, L. M. Porphyrin photosensitizers in photodynamic therapy and its applications. Oncotarget 8 , 81591–81603 (2017)..
Ferreira, B. C. L. B. et al. Effect of concentration on singlet oxygen generation from xanthene-based photosensitizers. J. Photochem. Photobiol. A Chem. 461 , 116167 (2025)..
Chen, P. et al. Synchronous photosensitized degradation of methyl orange and methylene blue in water by visible-light irradiation. J. Mol. Liq. 334 , 116159 (2021)..
Zhao, J. et al. Triplet photosensitizers: from molecular design to applications. Chem. Soc. Rev. 42 , 5323–5351 (2013)..
Kamkaew, A. et al. Bodipy dyes in photodynamic therapy. Chem. Soc. Rev. 42 , 77–88 (2013)..
Xing, C. F. et al. Conjugated polymer/porphyrin complexes for efficient energy transfer and improving light-activated antibacterial activity. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131 , 13117–13124 (2009)..
Abrahamse, H. & Hamblin, M. R. New photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy. Biochem. J. 473 , 347–364 (2016)..
Younis, M. R. et al. Inorganic nanomaterials with intrinsic singlet oxygen generation for photodynamic therapy. Adv. Sci. 8 , 2102587 (2021)..
Pasparakis, G. Light-induced generation of singlet oxygen by naked gold nanoparticles and its implications to cancer cell phototherapy. Small 9 , 4130–4134 (2013)..
Cheng, Y. et al. Simulated sunlight-mediated photodynamic therapy for melanoma skin cancer by titanium-dioxide-nanoparticle–gold-nanocluster –graphene heterogeneous nanocomposites. Small 13 , 1603935 (2017)..
Chen, Y. et al. Kissing-loop nano-kirigami structures with asymmetric transmission and anomalous reflection. Light Adv. Manuf. 5 , 498–508 (2025)..
Zhu, T. C. et al. Comparison of singlet oxygen threshold dose for PDT. In Proc. SPIE 8931, Optical Methods for Tumor Treatment and Detection: Mechanisms and Techniques in Photodynamic Therapy XXⅢ (SPIE, 2014).
Zhao, R. F. et al. Photothermal effect enhanced cascade-targeting strategy for improved pancreatic cancer therapy by gold nanoshell@mesoporous silica nanorod. ACS Nano 11 , 8103–8113 (2017)..
Gellé, A. et al. Enhancing singlet oxygen photocatalysis with plasmonic nanoparticles. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 13 , 35606–35616 (2021)..
Park, J. et al. Physically-synthesized gold nanoparticles containing multiple nanopores for enhanced photothermal conversion and photoacoustic imaging. Nanoscale 8 , 15514–15520 (2016)..
Aioub, M., Panikkanvalappil, S. R. & El-Sayed, M. A. Platinum-coated gold nanorods: efficien t reactive oxygen scavengers that prevent oxidative damage toward healthy, untreated cells during plasmonic photothermal therapy. ACS Nano 11 , 579–586 (2017)..
Nosaka, Y. et al. Singlet oxygen formation in photocatalytic TiO 2 aqueous suspension. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 6 , 2917–2918 (2004)..
Li, Y. et al. Mechanism of photogenerated reactive oxygen species and correlation with the antibacterial properties of engineered metal-oxide nanoparticles. ACS Nano 6 , 5164–5173 (2012)..
Daimon, T. & Nosaka, Y. Formation and behavior of singlet molecular oxygen in tio2 photocatalysis studied by detection of near-infrared phosphorescence. J. Phys. Chem. C. 111 , 4420–4424 (2007)..
Li, X. H., Zhu, J. M. & Wei, B. Q. Hybrid nanostructures of metal/two-dimensional nanomaterials for plasmon-enhanced applications. Chem. Soc. Rev. 45 , 3145–3187 (2016)..
Yang, D. et al. Au nanoclusters sensitized black TiO 2− x nanotubes for enhanced photodynamic therapy driven by near-infrared light. Small 13 , 1703007 (2017)..
He, W. W. et al. Photogenerated charge carriers and reactive oxygen species in ZnO/Au hybrid nanostructures with enhanced photocatalytic and antibacterial activity. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 136 , 750–757 (2014)..
Vankayala, R., Sagadevan, A., Vijayaraghavan, P., Kuo, C.-L. & Hwang, K. C. Metal nanoparticles sensitize the formation of singlet oxygen. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 50 , 10640 (2011)..
Gao, F. et al. A singlet oxygen generating agent by chirality-dependent plasmonic shell-satellite nanoassembly. Adv. Mater. 29 , 1606864 (2017)..
Hsu, C. W. et al. Bound states in the continuum. Nat. Rev. Mater. 1 , 16048 (2016)..
Kang, M. et al. Applications of bound states in the continuum in photonics. Nat. Rev. Phys. 5 , 659–678 (2023)..
Koshelev, K. et al. Asymmetric metasurfaces with high-Q resonances governed by bound states in the continuum. Phys. Rev. Lett. 121 , 193903 (2018)..
Liu, T., Guo, C., Li, W. & Fan, S. Thermal photonics with broken symmetries. ELight 2 , 25 (2022)..
Pavlov, D. V. et al. Nonlinear light conversion and infrared photodetection with laser-printed plasmonic metasurfaces supporting bound states in the continuum. Light Sci. Appl. 15 , 23 (2026)..
Rao, L. X. et al. Meron spin textures in momentum space spawning from bound states in the continuum. Phys. Rev. Lett. 135 , 026203 (2025)..
Maggiolini, E. et al. Strongly enhanced light–matter coupling of monolayer WS 2 from a bound state in the continuum. Nat. Mater. 22 , 964–969 (2023)..
Tseng, M. L. et al. Dielectric metasurfaces enabling advanced optical biosensors. ACS Photonics 8 , 47–60 (2021)..
Dong, Z. G. et al. Nanoscale mapping of optically inaccessible bound-states-in-the-continuum. Light Sci. Appl. 11 , 20 (2022)..
Tittl, A. et al. Imaging-based molecular barcoding with pixelated dielectric metasurfaces. Science 360 , 1105–1109 (2018)..
Aigner, A. et al. Continuous spectral and coupling-strength encoding with dual-gradient metasurfaces. Nat. Nanotechnol. 19 , 1804–1812 (2024)..
Hu, H. Y. et al. Catalytic metasurfaces empowered by bound states in the continuum. ACS Nano 16 , 13057–13068 (2022)..
Yang, S. & Ndukaife, J. C. Optofluidic transport and assembly of nanoparticles using an all-dielectric Quasi-BIC metasurface. Light Sci. Appl. 12 , 188 (2023)..
Crotti, G. et al. Ultrafast switching of a metasurface quasi-bound state in the continuum via transient optical symmetry breaking. Light Sci. Appl. 14 , 240 (2025)..
Jin, R. et al. Toroidal dipole BIC-driven highly robust perfect absorption with a graphene-loaded metasurface. Nano Lett. 23 , 9105–9113 (2023)..
Jiang, X. Y. et al. Tunable ultra-high-efficiency light absorption of monolayer graphene using critical coupling with guided resonance. Opt. Express 25 , 27028–27036 (2017)..
Ostovar, B. et al. The role of the plasmon in interfacial charge transfer. Sci. Adv. 10 , eadp3353 (20 24)..
Yuan, L. et al. Metal-semiconductor heterostructures for photoredox catalysis: where are we now and where do we go?. Adv. Funct. Mater. 31 , 2101103 (2021)..
Taghinejad, M. et al. Determining hot-carrier transport dynamics from terahertz emission. Science 382 , 299–305 (2023)..
Xiao, Q. et al. Hot-carrier organic synthesis via the near-perfect absorption of light. ACS Catal. 8 , 10331–10339 (2018)..
Sun, S. et al. Nanoparticle loading effects on the broadband absorption for plasmonic-metal@semiconductor-microsphere photocatalyst. Catal. Today 278 , 312–318 (2016)..
Shaviv, E. et al. Absorption properties of metal-semiconductor hybrid nanoparticles. ACS Nano 5 , 4712–4719 (2011)..
Tang, J. Q. et al. Calculation extinction cross sections and molar attenuation coefficient of small gold nanoparticles and experimental observation of their UV-vis spectral properties. Spectrochim. Acta Part A Mol. Biomol. Spectrosc. 191 , 513–520 (2018)..
Dolinnyi, A. I. Extinction coefficients of gold nanoparticles and their dimers. dependence of optical factor on particle size. Colloid J. 79 , 611–620 (2017)..
Massicotte, M. et al. Photo-thermionic effect in vertical graphene heterostructures. Nat. Commun. 7 , 12174 (2016)..
Saito, H. & Nosaka, Y. Mechanism of singlet oxygen generation in visible-light-induced photocatalysis of gold-nanoparticle-deposited titanium dioxide. J. Phys. Chem. C 118 , 15656–15663 (2014)..
Morozov, P. et al. Singlet oxygen phosphorescence imaging by superconducting single-photon detector and time-correlated single-photon counting. Opt. Lett. 46 , 1217–1220 (2021)..
Peterson, J. C. et al. Detection of singlet oxygen luminescence for experimental corneal rose bengal photodynamic antimicrobial therapy. Biomed. Opt. Express 12 , 272–287 (2020)..
Mokrzyński, K. & Szewczyk, G. The (un) known issue with using rose bengal as a standard of singlet oxygen photoproduction. Photochem. Photobiol. 101 , 546–549 (2025)..
Nonell, S. & Flors, C. Singlet Oxygen: Applications in Biosciences and Nanosciences (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2016).
Hatz, S., Poulsen, L. & Ogilby, P. R. Time-resolved singlet oxygen phosphorescence measurements from photosensitized experiments in single cells: effects of oxygen diffusion and oxygen concentration. Photochem. Photobiol. 84 , 1284–1290 (2008)..
Chen, L. C. et al. Effect of oxygen concentration on singlet oxygen luminescence detection. J. Lumin. 152 , 98–102 (2014)..
Gollmer, A. et al. Singlet oxygen sensor green ® : photochemical behavior in solution and in a mammalian cell. Photochem. Photobiol. 87 , 671–679 (2011)..
Badmus, K. O. et al. Synthesis of oxygen deficient TiO 2 for improved photocatalytic efficiency in solar radiation. Catalysts 11 , 904 (2021)..
Ziegler, V. et al. Photosensitizer adhered to cell culture microplates induces phototoxicity in carcinoma cells. BioMed. Res. Int. 2013 , 549498 (2013)..
Kulikov, O. A. et al. Phototoxicity in vitro and safety in vivo of the emulsion photosensitizer based on furanocoumarins of heracleum sosnowskyi. Eur. J. Pharm. Biopharm. 198 , 114257 (2024)..
Tanew, A. et al. Impact of light dose and fluence rate on the efficacy and tolerability of topical 5-ala photodynamic therapy for actinic keratoses: a randomized, controlled, observer-blinded intrapatient comparison study. J. Eur. Acad. Dermatol. Venereol. 39 , 1460–1467 (2025)..
Ang, J. M. et al. Photodynamic therapy and pain: a systematic review. Photodiagnosis Photodyn. Ther. 19 , 308–344 (2017)..
Niforou, K. M. et al. The proteome profile of the human osteosarcoma U2OS cell line. Cancer Genom. Proteom. 5 , 63–78 (2008)..
0
Views
1
Downloads
0
CSCD
Publicity Resources
Related Articles
Related Author
Related Institution
京公网安备11010802024621